


Black Kat: the Beginning

by LinneaKou



Series: The Night Has A Thousand Eyes [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Anxiety, Batman AU, Cat Burglars, Gen, Gotham AU, Gotham City Police Department, Heist, Implied Sexual Content, Mentor/Protégé, Minor Violence, Origin Story, Panic Attacks, Pre-Slash, katsudon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinneaKou/pseuds/LinneaKou
Summary: "God helps those who helps themselves. So who helps those whocan’t?"Yuuri was nineteen when he first asked himself the question that would change the path of his life forever.(The beginning of the Black Kat/Batman AU)





	1. The Origin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crowtective](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowtective/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [Nic's art GO LOOK AT IT](https://twitter.com/NICHOLASonICE/status/825006552046202880)

God helps those who helps themselves. So who helps those who _can’t_?

Yuuri was nineteen when he first asked himself that question. He was sitting in a hospital chair, in Gotham General, while his sister wasted away in a sterile bed. Both of his parents were desperately working to scrape together every cent they possibly could, in order to cover what their pitiful insurance policy couldn’t. The insurance company had already begun their dance to dodge the horrifying expenses, meaning that Mari couldn’t get the care that she needed in order to flush out the toxins from her body.

There wasn’t a doubt in Yuuri’s mind that his sister’s illness was all thanks to the abhorrent working conditions at her job; Mari was employed at a makeup company, working the assembly line in constant contact with the chemicals in use to preserve the products. She’d even been given a sample of the hand creme as a holiday present. She’d used it once, then thrown it away, claiming that the smell was awful. But constantly being exposed to whatever made that stuff smell as bad as it did? It didn’t take a genius to put two-and-two together.

Or maybe Yuuri was naturally suspicious. He had spent a great deal of his life in Gotham, after his parents had been forced to leave their hometown of Hasetsu, Japan, and give up the family onsen. He barely remembered the small coastal town; his childhood had consisted of the dirty city streets and a grimy apartment where he and Mari had shared a bedroom for years. He’d worked hard and clawed his way through basic schooling, snatching up several grants and scholarships so that he could remove the burden of higher education from his parents’ shoulders. He'd gotten an apartment near Gotham U with his best friend and tried to rely on himself as much as possible. But even with the relief of his college tuition and housing taken care of, both of his parents worked fifty-plus-hour work weeks, and his sister had dropped to half-time at college herself to do the same. Beauline Cosmetics was one of two part-time jobs she held, and while Yuuri was certain her health was already severely impacted with the sheer amount of stress that kind of life tended to lead to, he was equally convinced that it wouldn’t have been half as bad if she weren’t being exposed to what he was positive were toxic substances.

But what could he do? He was a full-time student with a minimum wage job, barely a legal adult. Beauline had already made it pretty clear that they weren’t going to foot the medical bills that were piling up, and even though Yuuri had urged his father to consult legal aid about their options, it was obvious that the company would happily bury his family in lawyers and forget about Mari.

It made him so _angry_ , he could feel hot tears leaking from his eyes.

Mari stirred in the bed, and he snapped back to the present. Her usually rounded face, a familial trait, was sunken and pale. She looked to be so much older and wan than she really was. It scared Yuuri, to see her so listless.

“Hey, little bro,” she croaked in Japanese, and Yuuri was on his feet and at her side immediately, her hand in his. “Where’re Mom ‘n Dad?”

“Work,” he answered quietly, squeezing her hand.

“Shouldn’t you be?”

“I wanted to be here.”

Mari frowned. “What about your classes?”

“I took the summer semester off.”

“It’s summer?” She blinked, surprised. “But it was just April…”

Yuuri felt something cold and sickly drop into his stomach. He closed his eyes and fought for composure. “No, Mari-neesan. It’s the middle of June.”

Mari didn’t answer. She ran her fingers over the upper part of her exposed chest and neck, where the strange rash had taken up residence.

“Mari?”

She closed her eyes. “‘M tired,” she mumbled.

Yuuri breathed in and squeezed her hand again. “Okay. You get some sleep. I have some errands to run.”

She nodded sleepily, and her breathing evened out. Yuuri gently placed her hand on the bedsheet and quietly exited the hospital room. He passed a nurse on the way out, and she gave him a sad, sympathetic smile. He barely responded - what good was sympathy going to do him?

He needed something more. He needed proof.

Revenge.

 

Beauline’s main factory and offices were located further downtown, and Yuuri was forced to take the Nikiforov Memorial tram, which cost him a hefty twelve dollars even with his student discount. He reflected sardonically on the time that Phichit had mentioned how the tram was supposed to be part of a massive public transit system that should have been free to use, before the death of its namesake.

Outside the tram’s windows, the grit-filled city streets slowly gave way to the more metropolitan business sector, filled with people rushing to and from offices. His father’s workplace was just a few blocks away, but it wasn’t where Yuuri was headed.

He got off the tram a block south of the factory’s main entrance, where the public and the office employees signed in. Instead, he shrugged into his black hoodie, took off his glasses and shoved them into his pocket, and ducked his head down to blend in with the loading dock workers streaming towards the open bays. There were guys younger than him in the crowd, and no one gave him a second glance.

He peeled off from the workers at the locker rooms, ducking into the factory hallway. He pulled off the hoodie and put his glasses back on, stealing a lab coat off of the first rack he saw. An unsuspecting lab tech passing by him was relieved of his security badge. He pulled a face mask out of his pocket and slipped it over his nose and mouth. Again, no one paid him any mind.

He took the first opportunity to nab a computer terminal in a dark lab, a room filled with empty cages and smelling strongly of bleach. Reaching into his pocket, he extracted the flash drive that Phichit had given him.

Phichit had been his roommate and best friend for over a year now, and he was the only person Yuuri had confided in. And, proving why Yuuri trusted him more than anybody else with his secret mission, Phichit had offered up something of his own: a program that would unlock the terminal for Yuuri without setting off any alerts. The Thai-born teen was was a self-taught computer programmer well on his way to becoming a feared blackhat hacker, and he’d been eager to test out the program.

Yuuri plugged the flash drive in and waited. The little light on the USB stick turned red, then green. The computer screen lit up, and Yuuri watched as the username and password boxes filled themselves in and the terminal unlocked itself. He was impressed in spite of himself. Then again, the factory servers were clearly running on an old copy of Windows XP… what was it about multi-billion-dollar corporations’ resistance to updating their tech? Did it really save that much money when the older operating systems were so easy to hack? Yuuri grinned savagely to himself and waited for the Admin profile to load.

He was greeted with a dialogue box illustrated with a tiny black hamster. _Admin privileges unlocked. Continue to run application in background?_

Yuuri clicked on the “yes” button and opened up the public drive folders. He was able to maneuver his way into the higher-profile drives and activated Phichit’s secondary app, a program that would help him suss out his target. He wanted the lab tests, tests that probably had taken place in a lab just like this one. He wanted the chemical analysis for everything that Beauline put out for sale.

He was rewarded a good ten minutes later with a host of files from studies going back seven years. With mounting nerves, he opened a preview of the most recent document and scanned it.

He was no biomedical major, but he could figure out the gist of the report: the laboratory rats and rabbits that had been tested for the night cream and pore reducers alone showed signs of memory loss, brain damage, nerve damage, and skin conditions that included rashes and loss of fur. And a quick search through the other recent documents revealed that quite a few of the products from both the current season’s lines and the previous ones shared several critical chemical components.

Yuuri dug deeper. He wanted more meat, and he found it: the legal department’s drive yielded a big payload of numerous out-of-court settlements and lawsuits regarding similar claims to Mari’s that had been buried. He was sickened to see customer complaints mixed in with those of the employees, all clinically nipped in the bud before the company could be forced to pay out for damages.

He decided to take the lot, all of it. Phichit’s app installed a temporary copy of TOR and Yuuri immediately headed to an anonymous dropbox site in order to dump every report from both the lab tests and the legal reports going back to the very beginning, when the toxic cocktail of dubious chemicals were first introduced.

He heard footsteps outside of the lab and glanced at the progress bar. 68% done. He ducked a little behind the monitor and watched as several hazy shadow profiles moved across the door.

73%.

He fought the urge to fidget as the murmur of voices drew closer.

84%.

He could feel his fingers going numb, his mouth going dry. He tried to swallow.

90%.

More footsteps, more voices. Yuuri forced himself to breathe normally.

97%.

His hands were shaking.

100%.

 _Upload finished_ , the dropbox site informed him. He clicked out of it and pulled up Phichit’s app, and a little brown hamster got rid of the TOR browser. The black hamster asked _do you want to disengage?_ Yuuri answered _yes_.

The Admin profile logged off, and Yuuri pulled the stick drive from the USB port. If he didn’t get out of the factory now, Phichit would pick up after him.

He dropped the stick drive into his pocket again and quietly made his way to the lab door again. A quick look out into the hallway confirmed that he was again alone in the corridor, and he quietly slipped out and made his way to the main hallway.

He immediately realized that his previous way in turned out to be compromised. A bunch of uniformed guards blocked the hall he’d entered via, and he quickly turned on his heel and made for the stairwell.

He heard a yell behind him, and he broke into a run.

Once he was in the stairwell, he shed the labcoat and sprinted up the steps as fast as he could. He thanked whatever divinity existed for his previous sports training, and his almost miraculous stamina. A few flights down, he heard the stairwell door slam open and the pounding of feet on stairs.

 _Shit. Shit shit shit._ He took the stairs two at a time and burst out the first door he reached, nearly bowling over a factory line worker who had been in his way. He ducked into an alcove, pulled the hoodie back on over his head and hitched up the face mask.

The guards were catching up, and Yuuri hadn’t thought ahead enough to map out an escape route. _Shit. Idiot._ He ducked around more workers and skidded onto the catwalk over the assembly line.

“Stop him!” one of the guards yelled, and one of the workers tried to comply, but Yuuri swept the man’s legs out from under him and vaulted over him. He made a hairpin turn and then, in a split-second decision that he would regret much later, shoved himself out the nearest window.

Either to his great fortune or great misfortune, the side of the building that he’d not-so-glamorously exited from was the river-facing side. Yuuri didn’t spare it a second thought as he began to free climb for his life, his muscles straining with every movement.

The factory building was one of the older ones in the city, with plenty of handholds if you had experience in climbing. Yuuri, unfortunately, did not. He had to take it slow enough so that he didn’t fall and kill himself, but fast enough so that he could evade capture. It wasn’t an easy balance to maintain, and he had too many close calls to count before he’d managed to get close enough to the edge of the river. With one last look upwards, he launched himself away from the wall and plunged right into the river.

Luck smiled upon him when a barge passed by, heading in the direction he needed to go. He was swept along in its wake, and eventually washed up alongside the water police access port. It was empty, the patrol boat already out on the river. He hauled himself out of the stinking water, shivering, and quickly made his way up the steps to the street level.

No one paid him any mind as he ducked the railing and climbed onto the bridge he’d washed up on, getting his bearings. He was about two miles away from the factory, and he had a ten-block walk to the alley where he’d stashed his wallet and other belongings. He ripped the ruined face mask off and put his head down for the trek.

 

Phichit whistled lowly as he scrolled through the data dump that Yuuri had retrieved. “So what now?” he asked, gesturing at the unnervingly clinical report of strange cystic growths on the laboratory rats. “What are you going to do with this?”

“Just let me catch my breath,” Yuuri grumbled, scrubbing his freshly-washed hair with a towel. He’d taken a luxuriously long shower of thirty minutes, and he _still_ didn’t feel clean. The reek of the river was still in his nose… but better than the stink of bleach from the lab. “I’m still shocked I pulled it off, to be honest,” he admitted. “When those guards were chasing me, all I could think was, _this is it_.”

“Well, you made it out in one piece, and hopefully no one was able to get a decent description of you.” Phichit eyed him. “You should wear some kind of stealth suit next time.”

“Next time?” Yuuri snorted and flopped down onto the loveseat in their apartment's living room. “Phichit. Seriously?”

“Yeah, yeah,” his friend flapped a hand at him. “Where’d you put the clothes from the break-in?”

“Ah, changed out of them and left them in an alleyway. Set ‘em on fire for good measure.” Yuuri was only a business major, but even he had seen enough crime dramas to know that DNA was a thing.

“Smart. You know, work on your free climbing skills and you could probably become a professional cat burglar,” Phichit teased.

“If it’s that easy? Literally anyone could. And keeping in mind the city we live in?”

“Fair enough.” Phichit fiddled with the USB stick that Yuuri had returned. Unfortunately, after Yuuri’s impromptu river dive, the flash drive was pretty much trashed. Luckily, it had been a cheap drive and Phichit had the app stored on his secure laptop. “So I have a suggestion.”

“Shoot.”

“Print off a few of these. Bundle them up all nicely and anonymously drop these off at the police station as a tip. But because we know that half the cops are in the mob’s pockets and all that, we can fire this entire data dump off to the attorney your dad was talking to.”

“Cialdini?” Yuuri made a face. “He’s probably not going to have a whole lot of pull…”

“But if we don’t try, then what was the point of literally robbing one of the biggest corporate entities in the city?” Phichit persisted, tapping the stick drive on the arm of his swivel chair. “Besides, if one of the decent cops sees this, maybe something can come of it.”

Yuuri sighed. The fight had drained from him, the anger that had propelled him forward through the nerve-wracking terror of the infiltration had dissipated, and now he was left unsure of his next step. This wasn’t like his classes, where there were rules. This was a literal shot in the dark, a leap of faith. And he didn’t really like those, since the last one had led to him taking a cold river bath.

“Yuuri,” Phichit wheedled, drawing Yuuri’s name out. “C’mon, I can make sure the data dump is secure. You know I can.”

“I know, it’s just…” Yuuri stared up at the ceiling of the apartment. The plaster was pockmarked with little dents and stained in spots. “I just want it to be simple.”

“Nothing worth doing is simple or easy,” Phichit said, uncharacteristically seriously. “I might just send these off myself no matter what you do, to be honest.”

Yuuri hesitated, but then the image of Mari wasting away in a hospital bed forced its way into his mind’s eye. “Go ahead,” he finally answered. “Get the data dump off to the lawyers. How can we safely print off a few of the reports so they can’t be traced back to us?”

“Oh, I’ve got Ole Faithful here,” Phichit grinned and patted his ancient printer, housed in the area of his desk where drawers should have been. “She’s been taken apart and modded so many times, there’s no way any forensic analysts could pull any identifiers from a printout.”

“And the papers are clean?”

“As long as we handle them with gloves.”

Yuuri nodded. “I can make the drop without being noticed, I think. If I do it at night, they’ll be on a skeleton crew.”

“You know when the changing of the shifts are?” Phichit asked, already typing furiously on his secure laptop.

“Well, I could aim for the one at three A.M.” Yuuri scratched at his breastbone area. “Anyone around will be out of it, no matter how used to the shift they are.”

“Spoken like a true college student,” Phichit giggled. “You thinking of taking a nap?”

“Yeah, but if you can get the printouts done, I’ll assemble the care package.”

“Ooh, code words! I feel like such a spy!”

Yuuri laughed softly and rolled himself off of the sofa. Phichit tossed him a box of sanitary latex-free gloves, and within a few minutes Ole Faithful was spitting out the reports Yuuri had swiped. Phichit capped it at three documents, each with at least eight pages, and Yuuri carefully placed them into a heavy-duty mailer envelope, using a gluestick to seal it shut. Phichit beckoned him over to look at the secure message he’d composed for Celestino Cialdini, and Yuuri gave him the okay to send.

 _You may be interested in these files regarding Beauline’s product testing,_ the message said. _From a concerned citizen._

Yuuri dropped the care package for the police into a plastic shopping bag and then headed back to his room to settle into his bed for a quick catnap. As he dozed off, he allowed himself to fantasize about everything going well for his family for a change.

 _It would be nice,_ he thought, _if they didn’t have to worry anymore._

 

It would be suicide for Yuuri to attempt to scale the police headquarters building, or at least impractical, so he instead lurked in the shadowed doorway around 2:45 A.M. and waited until one of the outgoing patrol officers exited the building, slipping in as the man left. He kept to the shadows as best as he could - for all intents and purposes, the Gotham PD typically made it pathetically easy for less savory characters to come and go during the late hours, but Yuuri didn’t want to be running into anyone and having to explain why a college student dressed head-to-toe in black was skulking around the headquarters at night.

He heard the trill of a woman’s laugh up by the reception desk and froze, leaning back into his hiding spot. Carefully peeking around the doorway, he was greeted by the sight of a tired-looking desk sergeant chatting amicably with a delivery girl. She made him laugh as she handed him a greasy-looking bag of takeout, and he nodded and turned his chair to get up, disappearing back into the bullpen. The delivery girl glanced around her, and then, to Yuuri’s shock, began to edge around the desk.

He made a move that resulted in his sneakers squeaking on the scuffed tile floor, and the delivery girl looked up and straight at him.

He froze again, like a deer caught in headlights.

The girl flashed another look over her shoulder and then glared at him before gesturing impatiently. “Hurry up!” she mouthed, in Japanese.

Yuuri found himself responding immediately, hurrying to join the delivery girl at the desk.

“What do you want,” she hissed, eying his outfit.

He held up the envelope with the printouts, on which he’d scribbled the lawyer’s phone number, and the girl raised her eyebrows.

“Anonymous tip?” she asked, surprised.

He nodded.

“We’ve got less than two minutes then,” she said briskly. She pointed at a desk a little further into the bullpen. “Drop it on that one, that guy’s all right.”

Yuuri took a deep breath and moved as swiftly and silently as he could around the greeter desk, the girl removing a lock pick from the messy bun at the back of her head. She had the gate to the bullpen open in a record amount of time and ushered him through. They split up, and he headed to the desk she’d indicated.

 _Giacometti_ , the placard read. Yuuri dropped his care package right in the middle of the desk, on top of a stack of forms that the officer had left for the next work day.

“Hey!” the delivery girl caught his attention again, and he heard footsteps approaching from the back of the bullpen. The delivery girl gestured to him and he practically sprinted back through the gate with barely enough time to squeak through before she locked it up again. He ran past her and came to a stop in the vestibule beyond the greeter’s desk as the desk sergeant retook his seat and handed the delivery girl a signed slip. Yuuri heard her thank the man and then briskly make her way towards him. She gave him a meaningful glare as she pushed the exit door open and herded him out.

“Not so smooth,” she said as soon as they were clear of the headquarters. “Total amateur.”

Yuuri shrugged noncommittally. He couldn’t seem to find his words.

The woman raised an eyebrow at him and then rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Good luck with whatever you were trying to do, kid.” She turned on her heel and stalked down the alleyway on their left, taking a running leap and scaling the nearest building before hoisting herself onto a second-story fire escape and continuing her climb, moving like a monkey in a jungle tree.

Yuuri’s jaw dropped as he watched her disappear to the top of the building.

_What the hell did I just see?_

 

A persistent part of Yuuri’s hindbrain was convinced that he would see the fruits of his labor immediately, even though the rest of his rational mind was firmly of the opposite opinion. He went back to his work as a zamboni operator at the college’s ice rink, and he couldn’t help but keep checking his phone for any sort of update on the situation.

His break-in at Beauline actually made headlines, Phichit was proud to inform him. Since this was Gotham and this sort of thing was depressingly common, the overall news coverage was lukewarm. He was gratified to see that the overwhelming consensus was that he had been a corporate spy sent to sabotage or else steal the copyrighted formulas. To his relief, there were no decent descriptions of him circulating - Phichit had even hacked the official chatter to check. His hoodie and face mask, though crude, had done their job.

It took a single news cycle to sweep him aside, though; one of the city’s beloved socialites suffered a robbery that had been the culmination of several weeks of publicity surrounding a major inheritance and some truly impressive collections of bronze statuary from Iraq. The public lost its interest (if there had been any at all) in the dry affair of corporate espionage in favor of the whining of an overly self-satisfied heiress who had bragged for too long about the impressiveness of her security vault. Someone had clearly taken it as a challenge and then passed with flying colors.

Then, over a week after his “heist” - Phichit would not stop referring to it as such - he managed to snag an hour’s time with his parents at Mari’s bedside when he was able to witness his hard work paying off.

Celestino Cialdini was a tall, broad man with an open face and a deep, booming voice. He was one of the few lawyers in the court system who took on hopeless lawsuits on behalf of the more street-level clients alongside his work as a public defender. He’d once remarked to Yuuri that it wasn’t often a working-class client got to turn the tables on the corporate shills, and he had a good feeling about his family’s case. Yuuri had dismissed it as either a backhanded brag or just some kind of inane platitude at the time, but he was still somewhat pleased when Celestino strode into Mari’s hospital room with a grin that was too big to be anything but genuine. He was clutching several file folders, which he proceeded to lay out in front of them as he gave his update: a mysterious tipster had managed to get ahold of the relevant reports and chemical tests that proved not only willful negligence on Beauline’s part, but thanks to a bunch of loopholes that Celestino had carefully researched, also blew several other cases wide open. He was sure not to promise them anything definite, but still expressed optimism for a positive resolution to their case.

“Poor guy,” Phichit said when Yuuri reported the turn of events. “He probably doesn’t get to see these kinds of things often.”

Yuuri had a flashback to the numerous legal memos he’d skimmed and agreed.

Celestino ordered tests in order to prove exposure to the chemicals mentioned in the reports that he’d flagged, and once they were able to start positively identifying the causes of Mari’s symptoms, the hospital began treating for what they could. There were moments here and there when Yuuri worried that they’d be eating the costs of these tests and the overall hospital stay anyway, but then there was a court date set and suddenly he was sitting with the prosecution and his parents while Celestino submitted the evidence that his mysterious tipster had given him, combined with the findings of the doctors caring for Mari and the testimony of other victims. A few electronic forensic experts verified the data dump on behalf of the prosecution as being genuine, and Phichit smugly accepted Yuuri’s thanks for ensuring that.

After several days of presenting evidence and cross examinations, complimented by a sudden upswing in Mari’s health, Yuuri and his parents found themselves watching the jury filing in for a verdict.

His mom’s hand was clutched in his, and she gave his fingers a squeeze as the foreman stood at the judge’s request. Yuuri had spoken to Celestino several times about his concern that the jury could become compromised, and Phichit had helped allay his fears (though Yuuri hadn’t quite been sure what he’d done yet) so now it was up to the prosecution and all the evidence.

 _Please_ , he found himself praying. _Please let it have been enough._

His shoulders still ached from his impromptu free climb and he had been having nightmares of getting lost in a maze of factory hallways as something chased him through the labs. He didn’t regret what he’d done, but so rarely did anything done in the pursuit of justice ever pay off…

“...we the jury find the plaintiff Beauline Cosmetics _guilty_ of criminal negligence--”

Yuuri’s mother let out a gasp of joy and his father pulled her into a tight embrace as Yuuri’s mouth dropped open and Celestino slapped him on the back in triumph. The defense team on the other side looked sour on the other side of the aisle as the judge awarded his family several hundred thousand dollars in damages, and for a moment it was like Yuuri lived in a dream world, a world where people were forced to comply with the law and innocent victims got their retribution.

He ended up in Mari’s room with his parents, Celestino, and Phichit as they celebrated the outcome of the trial later that night. Mari was already looking so much better, sitting upright in bed. They’d already relocated her to a nicer ward for her recovery, and she had been responding well to the treatments; her cheeks were rosy again and she was gaining weight back.

“I wish I could get my hands on that tipster,” Celestino said, toasting with a glass of sparkling grape juice that had been available in the gift shop for some reason. (It was either sparkling grape juice or subpar champagne, which Celestino had vetoed in a huff.) “Whoever he or she is, they just opened the floodgates for Beauline. They’re as good as dead and buried now.”

Yuuri grinned as he sipped at his drink out of a paper hospital cup, and Phichit waggled his eyebrows at him as the others raised their cups and shouted “cheers!”

 

By the time July arrived, Beauline had taken a nosedive in the stock market and was bleeding lawsuits left and right. Yuuri watched with almost sadistic glee as the company imploded and the higher-ups were roasted alive; thanks to the memos and the legal documents he’d retrieved, and some carefully-timed leaks on Phichit’s part, it became public knowledge that the company’s CEO himself had been involved in the coverup. It was rare for the rich corporate executives to feel the burn of the fires they themselves had set, but then again most of those people didn’t have a dedicated hacker and a member of the afflicted family carefully monitoring the downfall of the company. By mid-July, Beauline was up for corporate takeover and quietly acquired by one of the city’s largest and oldest conglomerates, Nikiforov Enterprises.

The settlement payout took care of Mari’s hospital bills and leftovers paid for her subsequent therapy, plus a chance for her to pick up full-time schooling again. While she continued in her recovery, she was attending classes at the local community college to supplement her existing credits for a nursing degree. Yuuri hadn’t seen her so lively in years, and it made him feel like his heart was going to burst from his chest in happiness.

With the easing of the familial financial burdens, he noticed his parents becoming more lively as well. His mother began to cook again, and really, _really_ cook - he hadn’t had his favorite meal homemade in almost a year, but on one of the nights where he and Phichit joined his family for dinner he found himself with his mother in the kitchen, hand-making katsudon once more.

“You could go into business with this,” Phichit commented enthusiastically. “I’d eat this way every day if I could!”

“I know Yuuri would. You’d get fat so quick, even with your figure,” Mari teased, winking.

Yuuri blanched at his sister. “Mari-neesan, I thought all bodies were _good_ bodies.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “It’s true, though.”

He flicked rice at her, and she responded in kind, until his mother put an end to it. Still, heading back to the apartment later that night, he felt buoyant as he and Phichit boarded the metro bus that would drop them off at the university.

He was staring out the window as Phichit checked his Instagram feed when a woman took the seat opposite him and coughed loudly. He looked up jerked in surprise as the delivery girl from the police station met his gaze. She looked completely different from before, but he recognized her from her expression, of being impressed and interested against her better judgement.

“Hello?” said Phichit, confused.

“So,” the woman said, tossing her long light brown hair over her shoulder and crossing her arms. “You took down Beauline in revenge on behalf of your sister, just diving headfirst into it with little to no prep? Impressive. Even if your technique is sloppy as hell.”

“Excuse me?” Yuuri sputtered.

“I saw your free climb,” the woman went on. “I’m guessing you’ve never done that before, huh? Still, while it was an idiotic idea to do it for the first time _during a heist_ , I gotta say you handled it well. Any lesser man would have fallen to his death or gotten captured. Lucky you, you came out on the river side.”

Phichit had grown more and more tense at Yuuri’s side, and Yuuri himself could feel the flutterings of panic in his chest. “What do you want?” he finally asked haltingly.

The woman smiled, a surprisingly gentle smile. She had a beauty mark under her left eye that rode the apple of her cheek as her lips turned upwards. “I want to train you,” she replied. “I think you can do bigger and better things.”

“‘I’m sorry?” Yuuri blinked. “Train me in what?”

The woman grinned like the cat that had caught the canary. “My trade.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did in fact name the cosmetic company after the evil makeup line from the Catwoman movie. Yes, I have seen the Catwoman movie. No, there will be no supernatural cat-based resurrections. Yes, I want to see Yuuri in Halle Berry's outfit from that movie. No, it is not practical. No, I do not care.
> 
> Onto the next!
> 
> [ETA: check out this series' tumblr here!](http://yoibatmanau.tumblr.com)


	2. The Apprentice

She introduced herself as Minako Okukawa, draping herself over a chaise lounge in her opulent apartment. She hailed from the same small coastal town as Yuuri’s family, even remembering his family’s old onsen.

 _Small world_ , Yuuri thought to himself as he clutched a glass of champagne. He nervously sipped at it as Phichit’s leg jiggled next to him. Minako had already identified him - “Chulanont, Phichit - first year Gotham University student, Dean’s list, early graduation from high school, full-ride IT scholarship, it didn’t take a genius to figure you were his technical assistance” - and offered him a drink, which he’d declined.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured them both. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Neither of them answered.

“Seriously. I’m impressed. I stand by what I said earlier - sloppy, but impressive. You have a lot of potential.”

“As what?” Yuuri finally asked, fiddling with the glass stem.

“Well, you’d make one hell of a cat burglar,” Minako replied, making Yuuri choke on his drink. “Seriously, refine your technique and learn some new skills, and you could own this town.”

“Wow,” Phichit said, giving Yuuri a wide-eyed look.

“You’re _joking_ ,” Yuuri managed to cough out.

“Nope. I can tell you, it takes a lot of hard work and practice, but I can teach you everything you need to know about making it big in this town. Infiltration, extraction, self-defense, grifting… I can give you the whole package.”

Phichit whistled, and Yuuri downed the entire glass of champagne in one go.

“Is that how you got--” Phichit gestured around them. “All of this?”

“Most of it,” Minako answered, waggling her eyebrows. “Some of it, I earned legitimately. I have a public identity. I head charities. Levels off my karma.”

“Did you fence everything you took?” Phichit pressed, and Minako laughed.

“Oh, honey, no. I have _contracts_.” Minako leaned forward, eyes fixed on Yuuri. “People pay me to steal things. Or plant things, like I did on the night that we met.”

Yuuri squirmed in the intensity of her gaze. “Do they know it’s _you_?”

“Of course not!” she laughed again. “I have an alias. They call me the Catwoman.”

“So if you become her protege, you’d be… what? Kitten Boy?” Phichit grinned at Yuuri, and Yuuri kicked him.

Minako flicked her fingers at them. “We can come up with an alias for you later, when you come into your own. What do you say, Yuuri?”

Yuuri curled in on himself, making Phichit sit straight up and the grin slide off of Minako’s face.

“I… I only did it to help my sister,” Yuuri said quietly. “I’d never done anything like it before. Never considered it.”

“Yuuri--”

“Hey.” Minako suddenly was at his side, putting her arm around Yuuri’s shoulders. “No, I don’t blame you. You and your family came here for an opportunity, probably thinking the law was going to protect you. But the world doesn’t work that way--”

“I know,” Yuuri mumbled, furious and embarrassed when tears began to leak from his eyes. “I know.”

“So, you know, is it really unfair when the people below push back on the people up top?” Minako asked.

Phichit made a noise of agreement.

“Think of what you could do with the freedom that this kind of life brings,” Minako said gently, squeezing his shoulders in a slight hug. “You could take care of your family no matter what this city throws at them. I think that’s sweet, so sweet. That windfall that came from blowing the case against Beauline wide open? That’s just a taste of what could come of this.”

Yuuri had a sudden flash of excitement, deep in his belly. He looked up at Minako, at her kind and sympathetic expression, and then he looked at Phichit, with his unfailing belief in him.

“I… I need to think,” he said.

“Of course.” Minako agreed immediately. She got up to grab her purse and dig in it, and then pressed a card with her number into Yuuri’s palm. “Please believe me, though, Yuuri - you deserve more victories like this. But you’ve got to reach out and _take_ it.”

He nodded, and didn’t speak again until he and Phichit got back to their apartment.

“So.”

Yuuri looked up at his friend as he pulled off his jacket and dropped it onto his chair. “So,” he echoed softly.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Yuuri sat down on their couch and buried his face in his hands. “I… I don’t know. Why me? What’s so special about me?”

“I could tell you, but you wouldn’t believe me.” Phichit dropped down next to him, leaning into Yuuri and putting his head on Yuuri’s shoulder. “Listen, you haven’t had this kind of spark in you since we started school. You haven’t been this lively in months. I like seeing this version of you, I missed him!”

Yuuri snorted.

“And don’t think I’m saying I don’t like the you that comes out when you’re sad or depressed, you dork.” Phichit jostled their shoulders. “You’re going to have your ups and downs, and your bad days. But you deserve to have lots of good days too, and you deserve to be happy. Minako’s right, and I think you should take her up on this.”

“I’m… sorely tempted,” Yuuri admitted. “I liked the feeling of pulling that off, I felt more alive than I have in so long…”

Phichit hummed in agreement.

“I need to sleep on it,” Yuuri finally said, and Phichit nodded and let him go so they could change into pajamas and crawl into their beds.

His dreams that night were filled with jewels and silks and warmth, and upon waking in the morning he could honestly say he’d never slept better.

 

Yuuri quit his part-time job the next week in order to free up time to train with his new mentor. He told his parents that a rich socialite had seen the Beauline case on TV and taken a liking to him. For her part, Minako did in fact set up a charity to help aid those most affected by Beauline’s actions in Gotham and Yuuri _was_ putting his limited education to work with her on it. So, not entirely a lie?

Minako ended up introducing and endearing herself to Yuuri’s family, and over the rest of the summer and into the new school year, became a regular fixture at their apartment. At first, the Katsuki family was bemused by the beautiful, rich socialite “slumming it” with them, but then she began to reminisce about Hasetsu and Japan in general, and to Yuuri’s immense joy his parents became very attached almost immediately.

“We’re so happy that you’ve made this connection!” his mother gushed one night, almost in tears of joy. “I can tell Minako-sempai is going to take you far!”

Yuuri didn’t tell her how right she was.

On his “work days”, Minako began to drill him on his physicality. She was almost obscenely pleased to find that he had background in classical dance (he’d stopped after high school to focus on working towards his business degree) and began to build on that, along with introducing Yuuri to Capoeira.

“We can build a fighting style around your strengths,” she told him. “Because trust me. You’re going to have to learn how to fight.”

“But if I do this right, I can avoid fighting,” Yuuri insisted.

“You can do everything right and still have things go wrong,” Minako answered. “It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

Added to this were lessons in free climbing and free running. Phichit often tagged along to these, perched on a rooftop with his laptop and watching with glee. When Yuuri was drilled on using the cityscape to move from one location to the next, Phichit would shout “parkour!” over and over again, no matter how many times Yuuri glared at him.

Minako also proved to be a great study aide as well, securing him the chance to intern and gain business experience with her various contacts in Gotham’s upper crust. She didn’t necessarily like all of the people she mingled with, as she informed him, but they could be useful at times.

A year and a half into their strange partnership, Minako surprised him with an invitation to a black tie event and a mission.

“We’re going to complete a lesson in _seduction_.”

Phichit yelped in glee while Yuuri spat out his drink.

“What do I need to learn that for?!” he sputtered.

Minako perched her hands on her hips and made a face at him. “Seduction is an essential tool in a grifter’s arsenal,” she informed him. “Plus, it will boost your confidence. Now, let's go get you a suit.”

It took a few hours for them to commission a nice three-piece suit for Yuuri’s society debut, and by the time they were finishing up, Yuuri was already more comfortable with the idea.

“See?” Minako said, patting Yuuri on the head as they exited the shop and headed back to her apartment. “And best part, you can let the suit do the introduction. Society people notice the bespoke clothes and that says all you need to.”

“This might be easier than I initially thought,” Yuuri admitted, smiling weakly.

“Yeah, just like the time you had to take pole dancing lessons!” Phichit added.

Minako skidded to a halt and stared. “Pole dancing?!” she repeated, her face in a terrifying expression of glee.

Yuuri buried his face in his hands again, fighting the urge to curl into a ball in the middle of the sidewalk.

“He lost a bet to some friends of ours,” Phichit happily told Minako. “And apparently he was really good at it!”

“Oh my god.”

“Yuuri!” Minako trilled. “Why didn't you mention this earlier?”

Yuuri gave her a dry look. “Hm, I wonder.”

“But we can use that! The sheer core strength alone!” Minako’s eyes sparkled. “And I bet that you can still benefit from it.”

Yuuri whined, but after much goading from Phichit and a _look_ from Minako, he found himself enrolled in another class.

“Try to flirt with the ladies there,” Minako suggested, completely seriously. “They're all in the same circles, and I want to start getting you established in public.”

“...what _kind_ of circles?” Yuuri asked, a tad suspicious.

Minako grinned and refused to say.

 

They were all society ladies. And a good many of them were middle-aged. Cougars.

Yuuri felt like a piece of meat. A betrayed piece of meat. He wondered if this was some kind of test.

Phichit, being the truly greatest best friend on the planet, volunteered to go with him. He took to being fawned over by grabby matrons with great aplomb. Yuuri just felt like trying to melt into the wall.

“Yuuri!” Phichit sang, hanging from his pole. “C’mon and socialize, woncha?”

Yuuri couldn’t tell what his expression must have looked like, but Phichit found it pretty funny. So did a few of the women in the class.

“Oh, it’s alright, honey,” said the woman on Yuuri’s other side. She had a blunt pageboy haircut that was so blonde, it had to be artificial. She grinned at Yuuri, her teeth too straight and too white. “Everyone starts off a little awkward at first, but this is all about having fun!”

Yuuri smiled weakly, and he saw the sparkle in his conversation partner’s eyes. That gave him an idea. “I’m sorry,” he said, allowing his bashfulness to come through in his voice and mannerisms. “This is… this is so different to what I’m used to.”

He could practically hear the squeal, the _aw, cute!_ thought in the woman’s head. “You’re so adorable,” she murmured, leaning in towards him. “But with a figure like that, how are you still single?”

Yuuri shrugged. “I just… it’s hard, sometimes,” he admitted. “To let people in. I’m kind of afraid, to be honest…”

The woman melted at that. She actually _cooed_. “Oh, sweetie, you don’t need to be! There’s someone out there who won’t make you afraid, and that’s when you’ll know.”

Yuuri eyed his companion’s ring. “You found yours, then?”

She smiled, and that was it. She spent the rest of the class doting on him and laughing at his awkward jokes, and the next class saw more of the women flocking to him, complimenting his impressive forms, and generally being sociable. Phichit flashed him the thumbs-up, and Minako was thrilled.

“I was hoping for something completely different but this is good!” she crowed, handing him a gin and tonic. “I keep getting comments on how sweet you are.”

“You were hoping I’d become a sexpot?” Yuuri asked dryly. “With a bunch of society matrons?”

Minako sipped at her own drink and raised her eyebrows. “Okay, in what case would you become a sexy little sexpot?”

Yuuri stiffened. “I dunno,” he muttered, averting his eyes. “I’ve never… never really felt anything, except for this one time, years ago.”

Minako raised her eyebrows. She didn’t say anything, just kept her eyes on him.

He squirmed. “I don’t… I don’t really want to go into it.”

Minako shrugged. “Mmkay, but can I ask you what you might be interested in? What would give you a good result?”

Yuuri finally took a drink of his gin and tonic. “Men,” he admitted after a long moment. “Closer to my age.”

Minako blinked, in slight surprise, and then smiled. “I see. Good to know.” She raised her glass to him. “But you endearing yourself to the society ladies is still a good thing. It’ll make it easier to work with them in the future.”

Yuuri swirled his drink, staring into the little whirlpool the motion caused. “I… I’m okay with it.”

“Good!” Minako clinked her glass with Yuuri’s and winked. “So you think you’re ready to debut?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, we can keep working on this,” Minako replied, undeterred. “We’ll get you there.”

Yuuri gulped and took another drink.

 

Minako made a noise and jiggled her arm. “Yuuri, don’t cling to me so hard.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Yuuri said, with his smile still pasted on. “Why did I let you talk me into this?”

“You need this,” Minako muttered out of the side of her mouth, giving him a little shake. “Just relax, be sweet, and you’ll be fine.”

“I’m going to die.”

“No you’re not.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously.”

Yuuri took a shuddery deep breath as Minako handed over their invitations to the men at the entrance to the ballroom. _Be sweet,_ he repeated to himself. _Be sweet, be sweet, be sweet._

“Yuuri!”

Minako barely contained a grin as Caroline Cox, one of the ladies from the class, caught sight of him and bustled over with the biggest smile on her face. “I didn’t expect to see you here! Hello, Mina!”

“Caroline, wonderful to see you,” Minako replied smoothly. “Yuuri here agreed to be my date tonight, isn’t he such a dear?”

Yuuri made a face at her. “A dear?” he asked in Japanese, and she simpered at him.

Caroline tittered. “Oh, he is, for sure. Can I borrow him for a moment? There are a few people I’d like him to meet.”

Minako didn’t even let Yuuri answer, she just let go of his arm and gave him a push. “Go mingle, Yuuri-kun. I’m going to speak with the Commissioner.”

“M-Minako-sempai--”

“Go _mingle_ ,” she repeated, flapping a hand at him.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but Caroline got his arm through hers and dragged him away.

He bore with being presented to more people than he could be bothered to remember - that would come with time, according to Minako - and while several of the ladies he knew were annoyingly persistent in regards to trying to set him up with their of-age daughters, he ended up relaxing thanks to a combination of the open wet bar and the sympathy of said daughters.

“I really don’t like it when my mom shoves me at random guys,” one of them admitted. “But we can play nice for a bit and she’ll leave us alone.”

Her name was Sadie, and she was nice enough. She was studying fashion design in New York, and had come home for a visit over the long weekend.

“So did you seriously meet my mom at a pole dancing class?”

Yuuri winced. “I lost a bet.”

“Wow, that must’ve been some bet.” Sadie sipped at her drink, a virgin sangria. Yuuri had already decided to stop after three glasses of champagne - he had inherited quite a tolerance to booze, but this was the last place he wanted to get fully blitzed. He was paranoid, but when did that ever hurt?

He shrugged. “My friends have terrible senses of humor.”

“That’s so funny!” One of the other girls, with whom Yuuri was not at all familiar with, laughed hard enough to double over. “Seriously, that’s one of the best ‘I lost a bet’ stories I’ve ever heard.”

Yuuri felt his face turning red and he found himself scanning the crowd for Minako.

“I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I swear.” The girl straightened up and held her hand out, sweeping her long brown hair over her shoulder. “I’m Sara Crispino, by the way.”

Yuuri refocused on the people around him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Yuuri Katsuki.”

“Are you Korean?” one of the other girls asked.

Yuuri only barely stopped himself from blanching. “No, Japanese.”

“I’m sorry, I really am. I have trouble with names,” the girl began to apologize profusely. “I’m so sorry, I hope I didn’t offend you--”

“How did you get Korean from the name ‘Yuuri’?” Sara asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I honestly don’t know, he reminds me of someone.” The girl hung her head. “I’m going to just not talk for the rest of the night.”

“So did you immigrate in from Japan?” Sadie asked, drawing attention back to Yuuri.

“Yeah. Long time ago. I haven’t been back in a long time.” Yuuri seized on the opportunity to spin his tale, hopefully to increase endearment in his audience. “My parents talk about Japan so often, I’d love to return to our hometown just to revisit some old memories.”

The girls looked intrigued. “Where’s your hometown?”

“Hasetsu, Kyushu.” Yuuri smiled, allowing his nostalgia to color his expression. “It’s a town by the sea, and there’s a ninja castle on the hill overlooking everything.”

“That sounds so cool! Oh, I hope you get to go back there,” Sara exclaimed, clasping her hands to her chest.

“I’d like to see it,” said the third girl, whose name Yuuri hadn’t yet gotten. “I mean, I’ve been to a lot of seaside places but Hasetsu sounds so different from, like, Fiji or Hawaii.”

“I’ve never been to either of those places, so I couldn’t tell you,” Yuuri said, scratching his head. “I bet you can tell, this scene isn’t one I’m used to.”

“You came in with Miss Okukawa, right?” Sara glanced over his shoulder, presumably at Minako. “What exactly do you do for her?”

“Well, I’m working towards a degree in business. Minako-sempai offered me the chance to work with her nonprofits for experience.”

“She’s so cool and mysterious,” Sadie giggled. “You have any good dirt to spill on her?”

“Well.” Yuuri smiled sheepishly. “She’s more dedicated to her workouts than anyone else I know.”

“Dude, that’s how she stays so fit!” exclaimed the third girl. “I cannot for the life of me guess how old she is, what is her _secret_.”

“You’re, like, twelve,” Sadie said, rolling her eyes. “Why are you worried about anti-aging?”

“You can never start too early,” the girl shot back.

“I don’t think you need to worry about it,” Yuuri said softly, and the girl’s eyes grew wide as a light pink blush dusted over her cheeks.

“You’re too good to be true,” Sara squealed, taking his arm. “Oh my god, you are just _so_ sweet!”

Mission accomplished. Yuuri smiled at her, wondering in the back of his mind if this meant he could grab Minako and leave soon.

Of course, that was when a furious young man with the same eyes and skin tone as Sara popped up, practically breathing fire.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled, and then winced when Sara whacked him on the shoulder.

“Oh, shut up, Mickey!” she snapped. She shot Yuuri an apologetic look. “Yuuri, this is my twin brother Michele. He can be a little overprotective. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no worries!” Yuuri hurried to reassure her. “God knows I’d do the same for my sister.”

“Oh my god!” the third girl suddenly shouted, pointing. “I know where I recognize you from!” She snapped her fingers. “Your family had that lawsuit against Beauline!”

“Ah.” Yuuri blinked. “Yes, that’s right.”

The girl’s eyes were shimmering. “Dude, that was so crazy! What was it like?”

“Scary,” Yuuri said, smoothly sliding back into his shy persona. “We were worried for my sister’s health, but we were so fortunate that our lawyer was able to help us get her cared for. She’s going to be finishing up her nursing degree soon.”

“Congrats to her!” Sadie declared, raising her glass. “I love a happy ending.”

“What about your parents?” the third girl asked. “What do they do?”

“At the moment, they both work office jobs.” Yuuri shook his head. “But my mom wants to open a restaurant, she’s an amazing cook.”

“Hey, if she gets that to happen, I wanna try it!”

Yuuri glanced at Sara’s brother. The young man was looking at him like he wasn’t sure what to make of Yuuri, so Yuuri gave him a soft, sardonic smile.

Mickey’s eyes widened just a tiny bit, and then his face went carefully blank. Yuuri made a mental note to keep working on his tells. He wanted to establish a public persona who everyone thought of as nice and harmless, wouldn’t hurt a fly.

He decided to refocus his attention on Sadie and the other girl (he later found out her name was Elise) and ended up spending the rest of the event with them and their friends.

“I think half of the socialite daughters are head-over-heels for you,” Minako told him as he helped her into a taxi. “Their mothers adore you. If you ever wanted a beard, you’ve got your pick.”

Yuuri made a face at her.

“Just an idea. You don’t even have to consider it.”

“How about I just stay a confirmed bachelor?” Yuuri said airily as he scooted in after her and shut the car door. “What’s wrong with that?”

“That might work out well, too. But you don’t want to appear too… eh, married to your work, you know?” Minako pursed her lips.

Yuuri glanced at the cabbie, but they were talking in Japanese and there wasn’t much chance that he understood that.

“I’m sure between you and Phichit, I’ll manage,” he said.

Minako snorted, but nodded in agreement. “You’ve got a ways to go, but I think we’re getting close to going on your very first heist.”

Yuuri breathed in, a sudden flutter of butterflies in his stomach. “Really?” he whispered.

Minako smiled. “Just gotta work on your rappelling and I think you’ll be well-set with your free climbing.”

“Still got some stuff to work on, though,” Yuuri insisted.

“Oh, of course, but I’d say if you tried last year’s trick, you’d have a better time of it.” Minako ruffled his carefully gelled hair.

Yuuri laughed, blushing. “Minako-sempai--”

“My god, you _are_ adorable. You’re gonna be absolutely deadly. I’ve created a monster.”

 

Phichit leaned over the edge of the building, grinning. “Hey, your phone keeps going off.”

Yuuri blinked at him, hanging off the roof by his fingertips. “What?”

“Yeah, tons of girls texting you.”

“Oh, great.” Yuuri hauled himself back up and twisted at the waist, swinging his legs over the railing and landing next to Phichit. “Gimme.”

“Want me to answer for you?” Phichit waggled Yuuri’s cell at him.

“Nope, you won’t get the tone right.” Yuuri snatched his phone away, ignoring Phichit’s impressed whistle, and opened up his messages. “It’s from Veronica Blake. You’d like her, she’s feisty and her dad is the CEO of a microchip manufacturer.”

“Ooh, best wingman ever!” Phichit waggled his eyebrows. “What does she want?”

“She’s asking my opinion on a cafe downtown.” Yuuri’s brows furrowed. “I haven’t been there.”

“I think she’s asking you on a date.”

“Shit.” Yuuri bonked himself in the forehead with his phone. “Help.”

“Let’s both go? I mean, you said I’d like her.” Phichit nudged his shoulder. “How about it.”

Yuuri considered it, and then nodded. “Sounds good to me.” He fired off a carefully-worded response - _my friend says he wants to check it out, join us?_ \- and tossed his phone back into his messenger bag. “Okay, back to work.”

“Parkour!” Phichit yelled, and Yuuri elbowed him in the side before dropping over the ledge again.

 

Veronica did indeed hit it off with Phichit, and Yuuri was able to sit back and enjoy the banter between them. Veronica wasn’t much into the technical aspects of her father’s business, but she absolutely melted when Phichit pulled out his phone and showed off his hamsters.

“ _Cute fuzzy babies!_ ” she squealed, clasping her hands to her mouth.

“He named them after characters from _The King and The Skater_ ,” Yuuri piped up.

“Ooh, you’re into ice skating?” Veronica’s eyes sparkled. “I skate! Used to skate with Viktor Nikiforov, back in the day!”

“Wow!” Phichit exclaimed. “I don’t skate seriously, just for fun, but _dang_ girl. Viktor Nikiforov!” He nudged Yuuri. “My BFF had such a thing for him back in the day.”

“ _Phichit!_ ” Yuuri blushed.

“Who wouldn’t,” Veronica gushed, not missing a beat. She raised her eyebrows at Yuuri. “So you _do_ have a type, though?”

Yuuri squirmed.

“Oh, you’ll have to excuse him,” Phichit faux-whispered. “He was heartbroken when Viktor quit skating.”

“We all were, but can you really blame him?” Veronica smiled sadly. “I mean, you know.”

Yuuri knew.

Phichit nodded. “Oh, yes, definitely.” He changed the subject back to skating, and then the movie’s sequel, and Veronica followed along willingly while Yuuri returned to nursing his tea. The rest of the brunch went very well, and Phichit ended up exchanging numbers with Veronica.

“I can definitely get used to hanging out with rich people,” Phichit said, sending off another text to her. “And I think she’s going to talk to her dad about getting me an internship.”

“Good!” Yuuri was genuinely glad his new connections could benefit his friend. His own phone buzzed, a text from Minako.

“Ooh, what does it say?” Phichit asked, peering over his shoulder. The message was in Japanese, so he couldn’t read it.

“She wants me to meet her as soon as possible, to discuss another internship.”

Phichit frowned. “But she said you were on hold for tho-- ooooohhhhh!” His eyes lit up. “Ooooh!”

“You wanna keep it down?” Yuuri hissed, his ears going red. “Or would you like to grab a megaphone, maybe do a tap dance and announce that I’ll be taking part of a heist with one of the city’s most notorious cat burglars?”

“You’re the one saying it, not me!”

Yuuri grimaced. “Oh god, I’m not ready. I’m not ready.”

“If Minako thinks you are, then you are!”

Yuuri felt the start of a panic attack in his chest, and Phichit dragged him into a nearby alleyway. “Hey, get a hold of yourself. Breathe.”

“I’m not ready,” Yuuri insisted through a sudden sting of tears. “Oh god, I’m not ready--”

Phichit swore, then grabbed Yuuri’s phone and unlocked it to dial Minako. “Hey,” he said after a moment, as Yuuri tried to get his breathing back to normal. “He’s freaking out, can we stop by?”

Yuuri didn’t catch her response, but Phichit gave an affirmative and disconnected the call. He shoved Yuuri’s phone back into his pocket and pulled him to his feet. “We’re gonna grab a cab, okay?”

Yuuri nodded, still too shaky to speak.

Twenty minutes later, they pulled up to Minako’s building where the woman herself was waiting for them. She paid the driver and helped Phichit get Yuuri inside and into the elevator.

“You okay?” she murmured in Japanese.

Yuuri shook his head.

Minako sighed and squeezed his arm. “You will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned how much I love Minako and Phichit? I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.
> 
> So this is going to end up an ongoing fic series for the moment, but I'm thinking there's another chapter left for this one and then we get into... the _meat_ of this. :D~
> 
> Also yes, Phichit is referencing _[that scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kvw2BPKjz0)_ from The Office.
> 
> [ETA: check out this series' tumblr here!](http://yoibatmanau.tumblr.com)


	3. The Heist

Minako had two cats in her apartment, because she hated being lonely. Most of the time they ignored Yuuri, but that day they were rubbing up against his ankles and draping themselves over his lap for petting. It was soothing, the rhythmic stroking over soft, smooth fur. After a while, the cat in his lap began to purr.

“Yuuri, are you okay to talk about the job?”

Yuuri looked up at Minako and smiled weakly. “How about you talk about it and I’ll listen?”

Minako nodded, still concerned. “Sure.”

Phichit sat down next to him and scratched the other cat under its chin. His warm presence at Yuuri’s side made him feel a little less shaky.

“So, what do you think of Nazis?”

Yuuri made a face at his mentor. “Scum of the earth?”

Minako beamed. “How do you feel about robbing some Nazis?”

“I’m all in and I can’t even climb a building!” Phichit chirped.

Yuuri sighed and leaned into Phichit as Minako chuckled. “I was recently contacted by an individual with some interesting intel,” she said, sitting down on the coffee table. The cat at Yuuri’s feet jumped into her lap, and she scratched behind its ears. “Looks like we’ve got a white supremacist in possession of some very rare artwork. Dutch Masters. Stolen during the Nazi occupation of Paris and presumed lost. You know the Grey family?”

“Yeah, they run that big conglomerate and keep buying up small businesses.” Yuuri blinked. “Wait, they’re Nazis?”

“Ah, the dad and kids are white supremacists, for sure. The mom maybe, the new wife is probably just a sympathist.” Minako made a face. “They are very into the whole gentrification thing and have voted Republican since the fifties.”

“Eew,” Phichit said, sticking out his tongue. “Why haven’t people started dragging them for it?”

“Well, they’re pretty good at keeping it on the downlow.” Minako played with her cat’s paws. “But some digging around yielded a lot of troubling paper trails. They’ve been very supportive of the Ku Klux Klan, and a few publications that make me nauseous.”

“So they’re not Nazis exactly?”

“No, I’m pretty sure they  _ are _ ,” Minako said. “Because when our client contacted the family to see if they could get their lost Rembrandt back for the family it was stolen from, the Greys buried them in lawyers and even bribed a judge.”

Yuuri narrowed his eyes. “Okay, counting that lost Rembrandt, how many other stolen artworks do they have?”

“For sure? Maybe six.” Minako’s eyes sparkled. “All proudly on display in the main offices.”

“What kind of security have they got?”

“Attaboy.” Minako put her cat down on the ground and stood, beckoning to her guests. “Follow me to my war room.” She pulled one of the light fixtures off of the wall and pressed her ring finger to the biometric scanner mounted underneath it, and the bookcase next to it slid to the other side.

Yuuri and Phichit rose to follow her in.

Both of them had seen her secret room before, and while it wasn’t quite a war room, it was still packed with the kind of stuff that would probably look very fishy to a law enforcement officer. Various tools for cracking safes, locks, and more hardcore security measures were laid out on tables to their left, organized by size and function. The wall was covered in schematics which were dotted with notes in Minako’s handwriting. Several harnesses and scaling/rappelling gear sets were hung from the ceiling, and in the middle was a table covered in a floor plan.

“We’re looking at vibration sensors on the windows,” she said as soon as they were all assembled around the table. She pointed them out. “I counted three for each window. There’s a laser grid in the gallery, where some of the artwork is displayed. One is in the office, though.” She made a face. “Did some recon. Not fun. Apparently the heir apparent of the company enjoys some… really not-advisable kinky stuff with his wife.”

“At least he’s not cheating on her?” Phichit said weakly.

“I didn’t need to know that,” Yuuri said at the same time. He glanced up at Minako. “So are we doing a plainclothes entry and then scaling the side of the building?”

“I don’t know if we can pull that off,” Minako admitted. “These guys are very careful about who they allow above the ground floor. You have to have ironclad ID, and I don’t associate with these guys. There are some kinds of people that you can’t fake pleasantness with.”

“No, honestly, I kind of agree,” Phichit muttered.

Yuuri shook his head. “How about I try an approach?”

Minako and Phichit both stared at him. “You think you can handle it?” Minako asked, surprise evident in her tone.

“If I try and go through the new wife, maybe?” Yuuri pondered it. “I could come up with an approach, we just need more info on her. Maybe we have some connections to her.”

“Dude, that takes some balls,” Phichit said admiringly. “Consorting with actual Nazis? That beats breaking into a cosmetic lab by a mile.”

Yuuri shrugged. “If it means getting some stolen art back, I could stomach it.”

“The wife might actually be your best bet,” Minako agreed reluctantly. “And that would give us a plainclothes entrance.”

Yuuri pushed his hair back off his face, smoothing his fringe down. “Okay then. Let’s put our heads together and rob some racist scumbags.”

 

Minako ended up making a call to a fixer that she knew. The plan they ended up coming with required a few pieces of tech and equipment that she didn't have handy, and they spent an excruciating amount of time working on the plan for Yuuri’s accidentally-on-purpose meeting with Anabella Grey.

“She's kind of boring,” Phichit commented, going over her resume. “And how the hell did she get promoted to editor in chief of a publishing house within a year of her college graduation?”

“Supposedly she has a charm to her, but I wouldn't know.” Minako blew out a long, unladylike raspberry as she pulled down another harness to examine. “I still say we keep the drop as an option.”

“That's fine,” Yuuri said absently. He was busy going through Edmund Grey’s pitiful social media accounts. The man was only seven years older than Yuuri and yet his Facebook page reminded Yuuri of his own father’s. “We need more intel on this guy, this is pathetic.”

“Ooh, ooh, pick me!” Phichit piped up, tossing Anabella’s papers aside. “I can get into his email!”

“Anyone could,” Minako pointed out. “This guy is so milquetoast that his password is probably ‘password’.”

“I bet you he’s got 2-tier encryption,” Phichit argued. “It's practically standard nowadays.”

“Even if he does, how hard would it be?” Minako tapped a long, lacquered nail on her war table. “You could clone his phone, right?”

“Do we know how to clone phones?” Yuuri asked.

Minako blanched. “No.”

“I volunteer as a tribute!” Phichit said emphatically.

“Then you two go ahead and do the meet,” Minako relented.

“And maybe we can try to get into his computer,” Yuuri added.

Phichit made a face at him. “I’m only promising the phone.”

“That’s fine.” Minako got a faraway look in her eyes. “I’ve already seen too much.”

Yuuri and Phichit exchanged concerned looks. “If I get the computer, do I get a prize?” Phichit asked, half-jokingly.

Minako didn’t answer.

 

Yuuri had already proven himself in the art of picking pockets, having mastered the skills needed to lift anything from wallets and phones to necklaces and watches off of unsuspecting marks very quickly in his training with Minako. So, it was child’s play for him to set up a carefully-timed encounter in the Grey Enterprises building just to grab Edmund Grey’s phone.

Minako was willing to reach out and contact one of the other tenants in the building for Yuuri to meet with, under the pretense of coordinating another charity. If Yuuri didn’t know better, he’d think Minako was campaigning for sainthood, considering all nonprofits she worked with.

He managed to accidentally collide with Grey and activate dummy phone that Phichit had given him, handing the original back to the mark as soon as the clone buzzed in his pocket. “Terribly sorry,” he said quickly, and Grey actually  _ sneered _ at him as he took back his phone and stalked away.

Yuuri merely blinked, keeping his face blank, and went to his meeting. He ended up finding out that Grey Enterprises worked almost exclusively with world hunger charities, and left bemused.

“I think he’s trying to end the famine in Africa,” Phichit said later, scrolling through the cloned phone. “Good luck, dude.”

“Why would he worry about it?” Yuuri wondered. “He seems like an asshole, and we know he’s a racist.”

“His cred will be undeniable?” Phichit offered, eyebrows raised.

Yuuri considered this, then conceded.

“Also, I’ve cracked his password.” Phichit added. “It’s literally  _ mrsrobinson _ . What kind of a password is that? Also-also, he still uses the phrase 'laterz baby' in his emails. Why are white people like this?”

Yuuri snorted and took the phone from his friend so he could go through Grey’s correspondence with his wife. He blinked and put the phone down  _ very hard _ on their kitchen table. “Jesus.”

“What?”

“It’s just… it’s all dirty messages. That’s literally all he sends her.” Yuuri could feel his face turning red, but he was still in shock. “And it’s  _ terrible _ .”

“Ooh, let me see!” Phichit snatched the clone up and unlocked it, grinning. His face fell within thirty seconds of going through the message history. “Holy shit, how is this guy married and getting any?”

Yuuri just put his head down on the table and moaned. Maybe if he hit his head hard enough, it would wipe the memory of what he’d read from his brain.

“Well, if there was anyone that I’d bet money on you being able to seduce, it’s this lady.” Phichit’s expression was now edging into comical. “It looks like just mentioning  _ helicopters _ is enough to make her--”

“Please don’t,” Yuuri begged. “Just don’t.”

 

Yuuri was able to make the approach on Anabella Grey a week and a half later, while her husband was out of town. He had already had an idea of how this was going to work, yet he was not prepared for the reality.

He and Minako had planned out several possibilities; his first attempt was dashed due to her bodyguard, so he ended up managing to bump into her at the local Barnes and Noble.

It was excruciating.

Yuuri had taken a few literature courses and he  _ was _ in fact in a writing class at Gotham U, so he used that to formulate his backstory and steer the conversation. Anabella seemed delighted to have someone to discuss literature with, but… well, she was  _ insufferable _ .

Yuuri had grown up around Japanese expats, and had been instructed in polite society and manners by Minako. He’d been disciplined by his parents, albeit very rarely - both he and Mari were both pretty decent at being polite and required very little behavior correction.

Clearly, Anabella had never had that benefit. She interrupted him constantly, explained basic concepts as if she thought him an idiot, and steamrollered his opinions whenever he managed to voice them. He managed to keep his facade up, a benign smile plastered on his face, as she completely missed the point of  _ Jane Eyre _ and friggin’  _ Beowulf _ . But hey, his shy and sensitive persona worked its magic; Anabella was completely charmed by his basic manners, willingness to listen, and his lukewarm commentary whenever he was able to sneak it in. She was the most ideal first mark that could have been chosen for him.

By the end of their meeting, Anabella was talking about subjects beyond literature and had managed to weave her arm through his, laughing at his dry humor (which he was allowing for himself because he had to have  _ some kind of outlet _ or else he’d go insane.) She ended up slipping him her business card and telling him to stop by for more help with his class, promising him the best grades he’d ever gotten.

He felt mildly skeeved out.

“I think she was flirting with you,” Phichit commented later on.

Yuuri made a tired noise and broke out the wine.

 

Their plans were ruined when Anabella’s husband returned from his business trip  _ an entire week early _ .

“Someone tipped him off about her meeting you,” Phichit reported, his brow furrowing as he looked through the cloned phone. “...I think he’s jealous.”

“I am going to be so glad when we don’t have to deal with these people anymore,” Minako groaned. They were gathered in her war room again, reformatting the plan. Minako had taken Yuuri’s approach to dealing with the headaches of the Grey family and had a glass of dry sherry clutched in one hand.

“Let’s just go in guns blazing and rob them,” Phichit suggested. “And by ‘let’s’ I mean ‘you two’ because I cannot scale a twenty-story building with nothing but suction cups and a prayer.”

“Gimme that,” Minako gestured for the phone, which Phichit tossed over. She opened the email that had alerted Edmund Grey to his wife’s new acquaintance. “I think he’s having her followed. Oh my god, I need vodka.”

“No, you are not getting drunk while we plan this,” Yuuri said instantly.

“You can get drunk too.”

“That’s not the point!”

“Maybe we can use this to our advantage?” Phichit said suddenly, snapping his fingers. “How easy would it be to keep his attention off of any possible security breaches if he’s too busy trying to keep an awkward nerdy student with an obvious non-attraction to women from stealing his wife?”

“Quite a descriptor,” Yuuri muttered.

“But that’s the part you’re playing,” Phichit replied. “Since you’re not going to actually try to seduce Anabella Grey.”

“Could you just  _ try _ ?” Minako wondered. “She’s so dense, she’d probably buy the fakest thing you could throw at her.”

“ _ No _ ,” Yuuri immediately responded. “No seduction.”

“But that is a good idea, Phichit,” Minako said after a moment. “Sex is probably the best leash you can put on a mark, and with a guy like Edmund Grey, it’s like having a direct line to his brain.”

“Better than money?” Yuuri asked in disbelief.

“Oh, yeah,” Minako smiled knowingly. “By a long shot. If you think you can’t get what you want with bribery, bring in the boobs and the butts.”

Yuuri grabbed for the sherry bottle, but Phichit stopped him. “I don’t wanna be the boobs and the butts,” he said weakly.

“You don’t have to be!” Phichit pointed out. “Edmund Grey is so possessive of his wife that you just  _ breathing _ near her will set him off.”

“What if he has me assassinated?!”

“We’ll avenge you,” Minako said with a straight face.

Yuuri narrowed his eyes at the two of them. “If he actually gets me killed, I am haunting both of you  _ forever _ .”

 

It took a couple weeks for Yuuri to compensate for the presence of Anabella’s husband, but he managed to work around that complication. Under the pretense of working on a paper, he consulted Anabella at the offices while he began to slowly sabotage the building’s security; Phichit wrote a worm that he was able to deliver via another USB drive, left innocuously in Anabella’s desktop computer when she pulled his essay draft to proofread. (She was the worst proofreader he’d ever encountered.) The worm eventually managed to make its way to the security offices, and voila: they had access to the camera feeds and laser grids.

Yuuri’s acting ability was put to the ultimate test when Edmund Grey showed up in the middle of one of the “study sessions” and offered to take him on a tour of the gallery.

“I recently made some acquisitions that I think you may enjoy,” he said as he unlocked the gallery doors with a retinal scan. Yuuri and Minako had already discarded trying to spoof the scanner, as there were perfectly serviceable air ducts in the ceiling that would suit their purposes. Still, Yuuri had the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped in a dick-measuring contest with a man who for all intents and purposes should have felt unthreatened by him. For God’s sake, anyone with half of a gaydar would have caught the almost frantic signals he was putting out.

“I’m not very well-versed in classical art,” Yuuri admitted instead, and Anabella cooed at him.

“It’s all right, I can give you the background you need.”

Edmund actually  _ glared _ at him, the pissiest glare Yuuri had ever been on the receiving end of, and pushed the doors open.

And there it was, the stolen Rembrandt. Yuuri recognized it instantly from Minako’s descriptions.  _ An Angel with Titus’ Features _ . The glorious, full-color rendition of a demure young man in white, gauzy robes, curly hair wreathed by a halo, broad wings spread behind him.

“Ah, yes, my Rembrandt,” Edmund said, following Yuuri’s gaze. “Presumed lost for nearly seventy years. It resurfaced in Canada a few months ago, and I was lucky to…  _ snatch _ it up.”

Yuuri schooled his expression into one of a mere mortal being impressed by the splendor of the rich. “How wonderful,” he said neutrally. “It’s really nice.”

Edmund made a derisive noise and rolled his eyes. “‘Nice’? It’s a masterpiece!”

Yuuri certainly couldn’t deny that, but he was kind of enjoying winding Edmund up. Plus, the guy was a big nouveau-riche egomaniac - nowhere was it more evident that he didn’t know what he was talking about than when he was trying to show off how cultured he was. “I was expecting it to look more like his waterlilies painting.”

Edmund scoffed. “That was a different phase of his career.”

“Actually, that was Monet,” Anabella murmured.

Edmund leveled a silencing glare at his wife, and she wilted.

Yuuri frowned, but said nothing about it. He nodded at the rest of the gallery. “What else is here?”

Several other major missing art pieces that Yuuri had heard of in passing from his acquaintances in high society, and quite a few that had been discussed in his Art History class (by a professor who was  _ very passionate _ about the subject of missing and stolen art) were prominently displayed along the minimalist white walls, and he started to feel that  _ itch _ again. It happened whenever he was preparing to lift a mark’s wallet or phone, and it was stronger now more than ever.

He couldn’t wait to see these walls empty and bereft.

After a few more minutes of Edmund showing off his stolen acquisitions and Yuuri oohing and aahing when appropriate, they all returned to Anabella’s office on the publisher’s floor. Edmund sat across the room, glaring from his perch on the incredibly uncomfortable (but presumably very fashionable) couch as Yuuri and Anabella “refined” his essay (which had been due a week before, and he’d gotten a B on the untouched version.) They wrapped up, and Anabella changed the subject to bland small talk, which prompted Edmund to leave the room.

Yuuri noticed Anabella’s posture loosening the very second that the door shut behind her husband, and he again wondered why they had gotten married.

“So…”

He looked up at the woman, who was examining him with an unreadable expression. She bit her lip, casting her gaze to the side.

Yuuri was immediately uncomfortable again.

“This essay is due soon, right?” Anabella asked, meeting his eyes again.

“Yes, it is.”

They sat in silence for a moment, and Yuuri’s skin began to crawl. “I’m incredibly grateful for your help with it,” he added, his voice steady.

“But that means you won’t have a reason to come by anymore.”

_ And thank God for that, _ Yuuri thought, fighting to keep his face impassive.

“I’ve quite enjoyed our talks,” Anabella went on, in a tone of voice that was probably meant to be sexy. Instead, Yuuri felt like his reproductive organs might be trying to shrivel up.

“It’s not like we won’t be running into each other more often,” he pointed out.

Anabella raised her eyebrows and nodded. “True.” She reached over the desk and ran a hand up his arm.

Despite this, he kept his composure. “Mrs. Grey--” he started to say, but she cut him off.

“Ana,” she insisted, smiling coyly.

“Ana.” Yuuri swallowed, and her eyes flicked down to focus on his throat bobbing. “You… you do know that I’m gay, right?”

Anabella blinked. “Gay?”

“As in, I prefer men?”

“Ah.” Anabella retracted her hand. “Well. Ah. Okay. Sorry.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, and then Anabella coughed. “So.”

“So,” Yuuri echoed. He rubbed his wrist, awkwardly.

“Sorry about that,” Anabella said again.

“No, it’s all right.” It really wasn’t.

“I just--”

“Yeah.”

“You know?”

“Mmhmm.”

They fell silent, and Yuuri barely prevented himself from drumming his fingers on the desk. Eventually, he excused himself and made his escape. Outside, he dialed Minako.

“Good news,” he said without preamble. “I have visual confirmation on all of the artwork in the gallery.”

“He let you in?”

“Wanted to show off all his shiny toys.”

Minako chuckled. “Rich guys are all like that.”

Yuuri sighed. “Remind me to never fall for one.”

“You keep at this line of work for a while and you never will.” Minako reassured him.

“Mmyep.”

“So how about dealing with Mrs. Grey?”

Yuuri shuddered. “I think I’ve officially made things awkward between us.”

Minako was silent. Then: “Yuuri, what happened?”

“Oh no, I think I’m losing you,” Yuuri said suddenly. He let the wind blow out the mouthpiece. “Sorry, it’s just too windy here!”

“ _ Yuuri what happe-- _ ”

He hung up and hurried to catch the next tram, ignoring Minako’s callback.

 

The next day, Phichit put Yuuri’s name on the visitor’s list so he could get into the building. Yuuri showed up about an hour after sunset and was waved in. At this point, he didn’t need a security escort to get up to the publisher’s floor. Thanks to his unassuming reputation, no one looked at him twice.

Instead of going up to the floor where Anabella’s office was located, he ducked downstairs to the sub-floor and made his way to the loading docks. Finding a fire exit and smothering the alarm was child’s play after a year and a half of practice, so when he opened it up for Minako, she had an impressed expression on her face.

“Alright, that’s it,” she said aloud. She was wearing a skintight black catsuit with a mask that covered the upper portion of her face, a utility belt, plus heeled boots and long, elbow-length gloves that were tipped with stainless steel claws. “Get your gear on, it’s time to go.”

Ducking into the nearby locker room, Yuuri immediately shucked his light-colored button-up and tan trousers and stuffed them into the cubby of a loading dock worker who was on medical leave. He changed quickly into a black Underarmor shirt and pants, slipping on climbing boots and gloves. Minako tossed him a similar set of headgear, and he slicked his hair back as he put the goggles on. Once he was ready they set out into the empty building.

They both made their way into the stairwell and crept up to the floor where the gallery was located. Both of them had heat-sensing goggles activated, and Minako kept an eye on their path ahead while Yuuri spotted their tail. So far, everyone was where they ought to be. It had taken a week for them to figure out the security rounds and schedule, but once they had it then they could move through the building with ease.

Once they reached their destination, Yuuri picked the lock to a nearby restroom. They let themselves in and Minako got the fixture for the vent pried loose. Quickly enough, they were shuffling through the ventilation shaft.

It was slow going; they didn’t have room to crawl, so they both basically had to pull themselves along until Minako stopped and signalled that they were near the exit they’d been aiming for. She pulled what looked like a tube of toothpaste from her boot and began to spread a fluorescent blue gel over the inside-facing part of the vent cover. She caught her claws in the slits of the vent and waited. Yuuri smelled molten metal as the binary gel did its job, and then Minako wiggled the vent and pulled the cutout free. She shoved it down the shaft to her left, and levered herself out of the opening, taking care not to catch her clothes or skin on the edges of the vent as it cooled.

Yuuri watched her carefully dismount from the opening on the wall, using her claws to dig into the drywall and climb slowly down, headfirst. She twisted her torso, hanging from the wall and slowly walking her feet around so she could touch down. Carefully, she pulled away from the wall and glanced around. Yuuri tossed her the spray bottle he’d stowed in his own boot and she sprayed the air around her ankles, revealing the web of security lasers starting about half a foot away from her.

Yuuri checked his watch and noted the time - they were only a little bit early. He followed Minako into the gallery, using the handholds she’d left for him. They both breathed out and waited.

The problem with the laser grid was that Phichit couldn’t disable it entirely without setting off a few alarms. Still, he was as good as his word; he had figured out how to spoof it long enough for them to get what they needed, but that would mean they would have to split up and move quickly. Hence why Minako needed Yuuri along - there was no way she could remove and secure five paintings in the window of time given.

Yuuri checked his watch again - less than a minute until Phichit’s worm did its job. They checked the grid again - still there. Then, the emergency lights went off, and they could see the laser grid glowing a dim green in the pitch darkness. They both switched to night vision as the grid finally shut off, and they were off.

Yuuri had gotten plenty of practice dismounting a painting from a wall and removing its canvas, and Phichit’s worm had shorted out the alarms on the artwork so that he didn’t have to worry about it. With a job of this size, they needed all the shortcuts they could get.

Minako had two of the pieces they targeted, both relatively large, rolled up under her arm. Yuuri had two as well and was working on the third when they both heard footsteps outside the gallery.

They went completely still, and a muffled voice on the other side of the door said something that Yuuri couldn’t make out. The door rattled, but it was on an electronic lock and Phichit’s worm had disabled those. They heard the buzz of a radio, and Yuuri made an executive decision to get back to his task of removing his final painting before the worm quit spoofing the room’s electricity input.

He had it out in record time, and quickly he sprinted to the safe zone to join Minako. She handed him her bounties and climbed up the wall, back to the vent. Once safely inside of it, she tossed down a rope from their kits. While she'd been climbing, he had secured the five paintings into hard carrier tubes before quickly following after her, handing her the tubes before clambering into the vent just as the lights came back on and the lasers came online.

Outside in the gallery, they could hear the security guards shouting in surprise and running around.

“Looks like we’re going out the window,” Minako breathed.

“The last target is in Grey’s office,” Yuuri reminded her.

“I know.”

They made their way through the vents, following the main hallway. Through the slits in every opening they passed, they saw guards running and yelling to each other.

Edmund Grey’s office was on the same floor as the gallery, and Yuuri hadn’t managed to get a look inside of it himself, so he was relying entirely on Minako’s recon. They reached the vent that opened out into the office and froze as a high-pitched moan rang out from the other side.

“Sweet Jesus,” Minako grumbled, scooting away.

Yuuri blanched as the sounds of thumping, grunting, and the slapping of…  _ flesh _ reached his ears. “Oh god, is that what I think it is?”

“I’m going to have to burn this catsuit,” Minako said instead of answering. “It’ll never feel clean again.”

Anabella, inside the office, cried out again as her husband groaned. There was the sound of a desk scooting, and then both of the Greys fell silent. Yuuri held his breath and then winced as he heard wet, slick noises. There was a loud crack that made Yuuri think uncomfortably of a whip.

“Never clean again,” Minako repeated, stonefaced.

They were saved when a guard pounded on the door, and Edmund barked at the man to hold on. The Greys presumably straightened themselves up quickly, and then Edmund opened the door, sounding very annoyed.

“Sir, it appears we’ve had a security breach in the gallery,” the poor guard said, and the guy’s voice made Yuuri think that he was probably cowering.

Edmund swore furiously, and there was the rustling of clothes and the tapping of heeled shoes, a flurry of activity, before the room emptied out. The door slammed shut, and Yuuri allowed himself to peer through the vent and examine the office.

It was spacious, for sure, filled with several life-size sculptures of naked women, a spacious couch, a massive mahogany desk, and a bookshelf. He spied the painting, a Klimt, proudly displayed next to the bookcase.

“Let’s go get it,” Minako said, and pulled out the binary again.

 

The office’s laser grid was easier to navigate, and Minako’s insistence on dance and flexibility training lent itself well to weaving around the laser tripwires. Together, they reached the painting and pulled it off the wall, flipping it around and leaning the frame against the bookcase. Minako began to work at removing the canvas from the frame, while Yuuri checked the hallway with his heat sensors. There was a lot of activity, but it was down the hall at the gallery, so they were still safe.

“Got it,” Minako said triumphantly as she pulled the Klimt free. Together, they rolled it up and slid it into the empty cannister. 

They were just preparing to head across the room to the window, so they could use the binary and open up an exit for themselves, when the door opened.

Anabella Grey stepped into the room, looking upset, and flicked on the lights. She caught sight of them, and her mouth fell open and eyes bugged in shock.

_ Shit, _ Yuuri thought.

Anabella let out a piercing scream that probably should have shattered the glass and ran from the room, her heels clicking down the hallway.

“I knew things were going too smoothly,” Minako sighed, slinging the Klimt over her shoulder.

Within seconds, Edmund Grey and several security guards burst into the room. Edmund’s eyes widened, and he roared like a lion defending its territory before charging at them. Yuuri and Minako dove to either side, dodging him easily, but very quickly Yuuri had several angry security guards to contend with.

Minako’s promise of developing a fighting style paid off. He incapacitated the smaller guard with a kick to the head and sent the man stumbling into the wall. The taller man was brought down with several blows to the various pressure points on his torso, combined with boxing his ears. Yuuri dislocated his left kneecap with a closed-fist strike and sent him reeling. The third guard he knocked out with a chokehold that he performed with his thighs, something that Minako had been very pleased with the first time he’d done it. He applied pressure to the guard’s carotid artery long enough for him to black out, and released him.

Minako had already dispatched the guards who had come after her. She glanced at him, and then her gaze slid over his shoulder and her mouth opened, just slightly. That was all the warning he got before there was a familiar cracking noise and his back was suddenly on fire.

“You  _ dare _ steal from me?!” Edmund Grey bellowed, brandishing the whip he’d cast aside earlier. Yuuri stumbled to the side, the area of his back where the lash had landed still stinging.

Grey reared back for another lashing, but the man had never learned how to fight. Yuuri ducked the next strike, which landed on one of the statues and shattered it, and then caught the third one. He yanked, ignoring the pain from his palm, and then he had Grey’s weapon.

Grey, stripped of his whip, immediately cowered. A big man filled with nothing but hot air. It was almost enough to get Yuuri to look down on him.

What the hell.

He turned to Minako, a borderline sadistic smirk on his mouth, and she had managed to collect herself. “What do you say to a little fun?” he asked in a lilting tone, quite unlike himself.

Minako’s eyes were hidden, but Yuuri got the feeling she was raising her eyebrows. “I’m not opposed,” she answered, mirroring his smile.

 

They left Grey tied to the desk with his own whip, buck-ass naked, forced into a submissive pose. At one point, he’d tried to grab Minako, and she’d stomped on his loafer with her stiletto heel. It had punctured the leather, and Grey had started crying.

“I want some of those,” Yuuri had said to her as they cleaned up the office, restraining the guards and locking it up for their unhindered escape.

“Maybe later,” Minako had answered. They used the binary to cut through the glass of the window and climbed out, dropping a couple dozen feet to the “conveniently” forgotten window-washer platform. Minako maneuvered them down a few floors until Yuuri was able to climb back into the much-abused ventilation opening, and they parted ways there. She disappeared with their bounty, and Yuuri made his way back to the loading docks to put his civilian clothes back on for his plainclothes exit. He took a moment to scrub out his hair and put his bangs back down over his eyes, adjusting his glasses, and sighed at the mess that Grey’s whip had made of his black shirt’s back side. He bundled up his gear and shoved it far back into the cubby for Minako to retrieve later, then set back out into the building.

Yuuri was sitting in the chair outside Anabella’s office, playing with his phone, when the woman herself stumbled upon him, escorted by several police officers. “Yuuri, what are you doing here?” she demanded.

Yuuri put on his innocent act and blinked. “You texted me,” he said, showing her his phone. “Said you had something you wanted to discuss?”

Anabella frowned and pulled out her own phone, by Yuuri wasn’t worried; Phichit had managed to make it look like someone had in fact sent the text from her phone, thanks to yet another clone. “I didn’t send you this,” she said, confused.

Yuuri raised his eyebrows. “Who else could have?” he asked in a bewildered tone.

Anabella’s eyes narrowed, and Yuuri knew she was remembering Edmund's behavior from the previous day. “I can think of one person.”

And thus, Yuuri was there when building security managed to get the door open to Edmund Grey’s office, displaying the ziptied guards and the whimpering, naked form of Anabella’s emasculated husband. Yuuri had to cover his mouth to keep a satisfied snort from escaping him.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of police questions and Anabella swinging between sobbing uncontrollably and sitting in stunned silence. Yuuri wasn’t allowed to leave until the police cleared him, and that happened close to midnight. By then, Yuuri received coded confirmation from Phichit that Minako had picked up his gear, and the building’s alarms had been reset. He was checked out and made his exit, but not before keeping up his persona and checking on Anabella one last time.

“I don’t think Edmund is ever going to let me see you again,” Anabella said hoarsely, not looking at him.

Yuuri raised an eyebrow, feeling his earlier contempt for the man rush back into him. “Why does he get to have a say in that?” he asked, before taking his leave.

 

“They’re calling you the Black Cat,” Phichit said, looking up from his laptop. He blinked when he saw Minako hand Yuuri a pair of heeled boots, and watched Yuuri put them on. “Dude,” he eventually said. “If I had the gear to pop a boner, I would.”

Yuuri blushed, but still smiled all the same. “Didn’t know heels did it for you.”

Phichit made an unintelligible noise and flapped a hand at him. “What do you think of the title?”

“Isn’t ‘Black Cat’ a registered trademark for a superhero?” Yuuri asked, making a face.

Minako snorted as he took his first wobbly step in heels. “We’re going to have to train you in running and climbing with those.”

“Worth it.”

“Uh,” Phichit winced. “You’re right, the name ‘Black Cat’ was registered to Marvel Entertainment. I guess the newspaper guys are going to have to come up with something different.”

“I can fix that,” Yuuri said easily. “Also, Minako-senpai? I want a whip.”

 

The next week, Yuuri beat the updated security system at Gotham Diamond Exchange. It was his first solo job. He made sure to give a good show to the security cameras, and when the police arrived to investigate the theft, he left them a note, gouged into the walls.

_ Black Kat was here. :3 _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I did indeed mock _Fifty Shades of Grey_ (and to some degree, _Twilight_.) I would say I'm sorry, except that I threw the book at the wall five times while I was reading it.
> 
> I lied, one more chapter. More of an epilogue/flash-forward. A few people still need to show up. [waggles eyebrows]
> 
> And before anyone asks, Phichit is trans. (That boy is my sun and stars. I love him so much. I need a Phichit in my life.)
> 
> Rembrandt's _An Angel WIth Titus' Features_ is indeed one of [the more famous pieces of art stolen by the Nazis during WWII.](http://world.time.com/2013/11/07/the-top-10-most-wanted-missing-art-works-from-world-war-ii/) It was not privately owned by an expat family or anything, but it is in fact one of the pieces that has yet to be confirmed found.
> 
> If you need an idea of what Minako's heist outfit looks like, picture Anne Hathaway's Catwoman. Yuuri's initial outfit is more of a basic cat burglar type thing, but they're working on it.
> 
> Raise your hand if you want to see more of Yuuri in heels with a whip. :3
> 
> [ETA: check out this series' tumblr here!](http://yoibatmanau.tumblr.com)


	4. The Good Life

Yuuri woke to the chiming of his phone on the bedside table.

He yawned and stretched, realizing belatedly that he was still in his catsuit. Last night’s job had been a bit of a doozy, but he’d been able to clean out the safe deposit box of Albert Torino, a high-level enforcer in the Falcone family. He hadn’t expected Blackstone Bank to have upgraded their security around that vault, but he’d taken it in stride and managed to get a copy of the master key in advance. That definitely saved time when it came to picking the locks.

Hilariously, Phichit had suggested the method for obtaining that key. Apparently he’d gotten it from a TV show.

Speaking of Phichit, that was who was calling.

_ Shall we skate! You could step like a feather on the ice-- _

Yuuri answered, interrupting the cheerful ringtone, and stifled another yawn. “G’morning.”

“Moooooorning!” Phichit sang. “Did you manage to pick up that cake for our friend?”

Yuuri snorted. “Nice cover. Yeah, I’ve got it, it’s chilling at my place.”

“Sweet! I’ll let you know where you can drop it off, okay?”

“Okay. Is that really all you called me for?”

Phichit giggled. “Well, I figured you were still asleep and hadn’t remembered that we’re meeting Sara for lunch in an hour.”

Yuuri glanced at the digital clock on his dresser. Shit, Phichit was right. “Thanks.”

“No worries! Wash last night off!” Phichit trailed off, and then there was a sound like he was covering his phone. Yuuri heard a muffled voice a bit further off, and then Phichit returned to the conversation. “Hey, I’ve got to go run a test attack on a client’s system, I’ll text you later.”

“Sure. Thanks for the wakeup call.”

“See you later!” Phichit hung up, and Yuuri pulled his phone away from his ear, still a little out of it. He rolled out of bed so he could strip the rest of his catsuit off, nearly tripping over the cowl and goggles by his bedside. He scrubbed at his grimy hair and winced, making a beeline for his shower.

It had been almost four years since he robbed Beauline Cosmetics and managed to catch Minako’s eye, and those years had been good to him. He’d graduated college a year ahead of schedule and Minako had gotten him set up with a cover with her main nonprofit right out of the gate so that no one questioned how he was making a living.

After a couple of years of saving up his scores and commissions, he had enough to do something he’d wanted to do for a long while: he bought a building in the entertainment district and gifted it to his parents, putting their names on the deed. His mother had cried when he presented the papers to her and revealed that the ground floor of the building had been a restaurant before the economic crash. It had taken six months of hard work, but with Minako’s help and Yuuri’s newly-earned degree, Yu-topia Fine Japanese Dining was established to an almost immediate success. It hadn’t hurt that Yuuri had been singing his praises of his mother’s cooking for years as Minako dragged him to more black tie events than he could count, and all of his society peers hadn’t needed much prompting to go to the grand opening. Added to the rave reviews that came in from all of the major newspapers and foodie blogs, and Yu-topia had flourished steadily from its opening.

If that wasn’t enough, Yuuri’s parents had decided to refurbish the apartments above the restaurant. They took the second floor units for themselves and rented out the rest, making a nice tidy income for them to supplement the restaurant. Yuuri had it on good authority that his parents’ renters adored them, and they had gained a reputation for being a great landlord and landlady among students and young adults looking for a place to live.

Mari had moved in on their floor, in a separate unit so she could have her privacy and her own space for the first time ever. She paid rent, and helped out at the restaurant on the weekends, whenever she didn’t have shifts at the hospital. She’d gotten her nursing degree shortly after Yuuri’s first heist and had gone immediately into the pediatrics ward at Gotham General. Yuuri hadn’t seen her this happy in years.

Yuuri, on the other hand wasn’t living in his parents’ building. He’d gotten an apartment in the same area as Minako, though not the same building. And Phichit was still his neighbor - both of them made more than enough income to afford rent and utilities in separate units, thanks to their actual line of work.

Phichit had interned for a bit at Veronica Blake’s father’s company, before he’d gotten snapped up for a position as a whitehat hacker at Glasskey Security. He now made his living hacking by day…  _ and _ by night, under an incomprehensible handle that was also the sole point of contact to hire the infamous Black Kat.

Yuuri on the other hand had begun taking jobs on his own almost immediately, to Minako’s approval. He’d managed to make a name for himself in the city, and he and Phichit occasionally checked on his ever-growing file with the Gotham PD (to their amusement, the investigators’ frustration tended to bleed through in their reports.) Black Kat had a reputation for being very efficient, very clean, and very difficult to pin down. It was well-earned, and Yuuri was paid handsomely for his talents. Well enough that he could just keep up the otherwise redundant work as an adminstrator at Minako’s nonprofit for immigrant and in-need students, plus his also being a co-owner of Yu-topia with his parents (they’d insisted, and he had been so very pleased to agree.) In between the minimal work to keep the nonprofit going and the busywork for the restaurant, Yuuri had plenty of time to plot his heists and cozy up to his marks. It was a pretty ideal life.

His phone had a few messages waiting for him when he got out of the shower, and he went through them idly as he toweled his hair dry.

Indeed, there was a reminder for today’s lunch with Sara, and when the phrase “lunch with Sara” was thrown out there it actually meant “lunch with Sara and Mickey breathing over her shoulder”. Still, Yuuri liked Sara Crispino. She was surprisingly sweet and sane for someone of her status. And, she’d added that Mila Babicheva, the daughter of the mayor, would be joining them. Yuuri winced, remembering that Phichit was coming along as well. Sara and Phichit tended to get along very well. Almost like a house on fire. Adding Mila would probably bring in actual fire. Sometimes it felt like Yuuri was the Mom Friend.

Minako had texted him a reminder that she was signing him up for the Bachelor Auction, taking place at the New Year’s Eve gala. Yuuri was not looking forward to it, but the charity was for the beleaguered Gotham Public School District, which was seeing more budget cuts than should be really acceptable. Having benefitted from the GPSD and its overworked, underpaid teachers’ dedication to their students, Yuuri could tamp down his discomfort and let rich society women bid on him. Maybe he’d loosen up in advance with some champagne.

He scooped up his catsuit and gear, moving to stow it in his hidden alcove in the apartment’s closet. He grabbed his favorite whip, lovingly named Vicchan (for reasons that Phichit loved to rib him on) off of the bedside table, carefully winding it up as to avoid any tangles.

He’d had to tangle with a few rent-a-cop guards last night, but they hadn’t caused him much trouble and he hadn’t really messed with them much. They didn’t get paid enough for the full Black Kat treatment; thus, Vicchan hadn’t gotten much use last night.

Yuuri locked up his gear and pulled one of his coziest turtleneck sweaters off of the left-hand shelf. Gotham in midwinter had a bit of a bite this year, and the lake wasn’t helping any. Pairing his sweater with a pair of dark wash jeans, which had the added benefit of being nice and thick, he dressed for comfort instead of style. Everyone could mock him for his wardrobe choice, he’d laugh at them from his warm pile of turtlenecks as they shivered.

Ten minutes later, his hair was dry enough for him to be willing to venture outside into the chill. He bundled up and headed out, locking up and setting his security measures in place. One could never be too careful, living in Gotham.

 

Not only was Mila at the lunch with the Crispinos, but Jean-Jacques Leroy, son of the recently-elected councilwoman, had joined them as well. He spent most of the meal boasting about his mother’s successful campaign and his father’s work with the CPD as Police Commissioner. Everyone kind of politely rolled their eyes when he wasn't looking.

“Say, Yuuri,” Mila suddenly said, cutting JJ off before he could start talking about his girlfriend. “Aren't you going to be in the bachelor auction at the gala?”

Yuuri felt his face turning beet red. “Don't remind me.”

“Oh, nice! Me too, man!” JJ laughed loudly and leaned back in his chair. “What about you, Mickey?”

Mickey shuddered. “No fucking way.”

“Shame,” JJ said airily. “I was gonna challenge you to a bet. Hey, Yuuri, how about it? Whoever gets the highest bid gets a lobster dinner from the loser!”

“Nah,” Yuuri cut him off. “Not interested.”

“But--”

“Anyway,” Mila interrupted him. “Did you hear?”

Everyone went quiet, and Sara leaned in, eyes wide. “Hear what?”

“Ooh, I guess not everyone heard the news yet. Guess who’s coming back to Gotham?”

Mickey snorted. “Who? The cast of  _ The Voice _ ?”

Mila glared at him. “Dude, that was once. No, Viktor Nikiforov!”

Yuuri sat up in his seat, mouth dropping open. “He’s alive?”

“Yeah! Isn’t that great?” Mila clapped excitedly.

Phichit was grinning, waggling his eyebrows.

Yuuri swallowed, trying to find his words. “Yeah. Yeah! Amazing!”

Sara giggled and patted his shoulder, and Phichit wasn’t even bothering to smother his laughter.

Mila cast a sly glance at Yuuri. “I also hear he’s totally single.”

“I’m just happy he’s not dead,” Yuuri said, blushing. His old crush on the billionaire heir was common knowledge in his circle of friends, and most of the were kind enough to not mock him for it.

The topic turned back to how Mila knew - her mother the mayor was going to be speaking at a massive Welcome Home party at Nikiforov Manor on Christmas Eve - and Yuuri listened with half his attention.

Viktor Nikiforov, still alive. The thought made something warm and bright bloom in his chest, and he couldn’t stop smiling. He’d held out hope over the past decade that Viktor was still alive out there, searching for himself. It was nice to be vindicated.

Belatedly, he realized that sooner or later he’d be commissioned to try and rob the billionaire. Hopefully Phichit would be nice enough to dismiss those requests, no matter how high the promised paycheck.

“Don’t you think, Yuuri?”

He started, blinking. “Hm? Oh, yeah, sure.”

“Aww, look,” Mila sang, grinning mischievously. “The rekindling of childhood love!”

“Okay, enough, cut that out,” Yuuri said, feeling his face heat up again. “You’ve had your fun.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Sara told him. “I hope you get to meet him.”

“You probably will,” Phichit pointed out. “I bet you’ll be able to run into him some, if you start bugging Nikiforov Enterprises for support. His father was super charitable…”

“Ooh, we should plan a meet-cute!” Mila exclaimed, and Phichit chimed in his agreement.

“If you guys do that, I’m leaving the country and never coming back,” Yuuri deadpanned, and forcibly steered the conversation to calmer waters.

They talked a little while longer before Mila had to leave for an appointment, and then they settled the bill and split up. Phichit and Yuuri made their way to the nearest elevated train station, heading back to their building.

“So,” Phichit said aloud. “I’ve got another job for you to look at.”

Yuuri hummed. “Anything that Minako might be interested in?”

“She’s got her own plans around this time,” Phichit answered, messing with his phone. “Besides, it’s a one-person job. Messing with the Cobblepot gang, mostly.”

Yuuri’s eyebrows went up. “You get the feeling that there’s going to be a mob war in Gotham sometime soon?”

Phichit laughed, a bit harshly. “Dude, where have you been? The mob war has never  _ stopped. _ ”

“Yeah, true.” Yuuri sighed. “I just hope Black Kat doesn’t get drawn directly into it. Mob guys are so  _ messy _ .”

“If you want, I can turn this job down. Now that I think of it, a lot of mob jobs have been coming down the pipeline. Lot of high rollers, too.”

“Yeah, that might be for the best. I haven’t beaten a museum’s security in a while,” Yuuri mused, chewing on a thumbnail. “Maybe I’ll take the Modern Art Museum’s new exhibit for a spin.”

“Okay,” Phichit agreed. “I’ll contact Emil and let him know we might need a fence. Still can’t believe people buy that stuff.”

“It’s art. Art is meant to be up to interpretation.” Yuuri shrugged. “Who cares, as long as someone pays?”

“Well, if you’d rather freelance for a while instead of being the stick that the gangs poke each other with, I can ride with that.” Phichit linked his arm through Yuuri’s as they began to climb the stairs to the platform. “In fact, I kind of miss freelancing.”

“You freelance all the time,” Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Don’t think I haven’t heard about the campaign data breaches from the election. JJ should have been thanking you for getting his mom elected.”

“Well, the other guy was in Falcone’s pocket. I’ll take the mob’s money, but I don’t want the city literally ruled by them.”

“No, I’m with you on that.” Yuuri fell quiet as they entered the platform, surrounded by regular citizens. “What are the odds I can get into that party on Christmas Eve?” he mused aloud.

Phichit whacked him on the arm. “Hey, Christmas Eve is family time, and you are not skipping out on our marathon this year!”

Yuuri sighed. “Oh, all right.”

“Besides, you’ll have plenty of time to cosy up to Viktor in the New Year,” Phichit promised. “No way your paths don’t cross.”

“Mm, yeah. You’re right.” Yuuri smiled at the thought.

But, he still had to bite back a quip about crossing a black cat’s path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's Yuuri's introduction! Thanks for sticking with me through this, y'all!
> 
> Up next is Viktor's story, and hoo boy am I excited to do this series! I'm hoping to keep this going pretty regularly, and the feedback is super-helpful so thank you guys to everyone who commented! Mega-thanks to soyunperdedor for the idea to name Yuuri's whip "Vicchan"!
> 
> [ALSO YOU GUYS NIC DREW IT!!! YURI IN HALLE BERRY'S CATWOMAN COSTUME!! I AM ALIVE!!!](https://twitter.com/NICHOLASonICE/status/832590000248098816)
> 
> [ETA: check out this series' tumblr here!](http://yoibatmanau.tumblr.com)


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